Whether you’re watching lacrosse, hockey, or golf, body checking always makes a sport more interesting. Here’s a Norwegian exhibition of soccer than incorporates this insight.

-via @JessFink

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is in serious trouble, folks. You see, Brazil has banned alcoholic drinks at all Brazilian stadiums, and that's just not cool with soccer's world governing body, FIFA.

So, in an effort to stand up for the rights beer lovers, FIFA said that beer "must be sold" in the World Cup:

In remarks to journalists in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Valcke sounded frustrated with Brazilian officials:

"Alcoholic drinks are part of the Fifa World Cup, so we're going to have them. Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant but that's something we won't negotiate," he said.

"The fact that we have the right to sell beer has to be a part of the law."

Budweiser is a big sponsor of the World Cup, but I'm absolutely, positively sure that has nothing to do with Fifa's position on this: Link

Previously on Neatorama: Neatolicous Fun Facts: Beer

The Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football (CANAF) concluded last month in Ghana, and Liberia won the tournament by defeating Ghana in the final game 4-2. Link -via Buzzfeed

It’s none of the usual explanations: lots of scoring being better than endless nil-nil draws—I’ve been to cricket matches in which 1,000 runs were scored and you could hardly call them riveting. It’s not the hoopla or the sport-as-family-entertainment thing either which soccer fans accustomed to English hooliganism are supposed to appreciate. (Have you ever been to an Eagles game?)

Baseball fans will have to forgive me here, but the answer, I think, is that football is the quintessential American sport. It’s no accident it hasn’t really caught on elsewhere (the annual NFL game in London notwithstanding) whereas baseball and basketball have at least a claim to a global following and participation.

In its energy and complexity, football captures the spirit of America better than any other cultural creation on this continent, and I don’t mean because it features long breaks in which advertisers get to sell beer and treatments for erectile dysfunction. It sits at the intersection of pioneering aggression and impossibly complex strategic planning. It is a collision of Hobbes and Locke; violent, primal force tempered by the most complex set of rules, regulations, procedures and systems ever conceived in an athletic framework.

Soccer is called the beautiful game. But football is chess, played with real pieces that try to knock each other’s brains out. It doesn’t get any more beautiful than that.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: AP

(Video Link)

Personally, I can’t get into watching sports on television, but the Puppy Bowl is another story and this video is the World Cup equivalent.

Via BuzzFeed

Last Sunday, the UAE defeated Lebanon 6-2. Awana Diab scored a goal with a creative penalty kick that was struck with his heel:

Diab’s setup seemed like any other for a penalty, but as he ran up to the ball, he stopped, turned around and backheeled the it toward the goal. Stunned by the audacity, madness and nerve it takes to try and score a penalty with your back to the goal, the keeper just stood and watched as the ball trickled into the net.

The UAE’s coach immediately yanked Diab from the game, asserting that he had acted disrespectfully to the opposing team. Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

A Danish football league for 14-year-olds got a boost reminiscent of Improv Everwhere’s Best Game Ever when a group that was “tasked with making the Under 21 European Football Championship more visible” converged on a game unbeknownst to the players and made it feel like a championship final! They brought spectators, avid fans, cheerleaders, a marching band, vendors, sports journalists, and even soccer stars. A good time was had by all. -via reddit

This video is like a Hollywood sports film (The Mighty Ducks, Hoosiers, A League of Their Own) condensed into five minutes. It’s a true story that took place in the village of Koh Panyee, Thailand in 1986, dramatized by the ad agency Leo Burnett & Arc Worldwide for Thai Military Bank. -via reddit

It’s Uzbekistan vs. Qatar in the 2010 Asian Games. First, the Uzbek goalie trips over his own feet. Then the Qatari forward misses an unopposed kick directly in front of the Uzbek goal. Then another Qatari player kicks the ball completely over the goal. And that’s in just ten seconds.

via Ace of Spades HQ

YouTube user knitalatte filmed two snails playing soccer in 2008. The fast-paced, high-scoring action is absolutely riveting.

via Ace of Spades HQ

Investigations were launched, and the nation’s sports minister muttered to the press about “shadowy handlers” and “mafia groups.” After what must have been a grueling piece of detective work, the investigators pinned their suspicions on Tchanile Bana, a former national-team coach who had recently been suspended for taking another fake team  to a tournament in Egypt. Bana confessed, apologized, was banned from the game for three years, and insisted—maybe a little too fervently—that he had acted alone.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the story, which you can read at Slate. Link -via the Presurfer

This video is from a match between two Moroccan teams. Khalid Askri, the goalie playing for Rabat, thought that he had successfully defended his goal. But the spin that he placed on the soccer ball caused it to slowly travel into the net after he had already turned away.

Link via reddit

At a 1997 soccer match, Roberto Carlos scored a goal against the French national team that seemed physically impossible. The ball seemed to curve around the French players. Physicists couldn’t explain the ball’s movement:

A group of French scientists, perhaps desperate to prove that at least the laws of physics weren’t actively rooting against their national team, have been able to figure out the trajectory of the ball and, with it, an equation to describe its unusual path.

It all comes down to the fact that, when a sphere spins, its trajectory is a spiral. Usually, gravity and the relatively short distance the ball travels cover up this spiral trajectory, but Carlos was a mere 115 feet away and kicked the ball hard enough to reveal its true spiral-like path. As you can see in the diagram above, the ball would have kept spiraling if gravity (and the netting) hadn’t gotten in the way.

At the link, you can see a video of the kick.

Link | Image: New Journal of Physics

Ratcliffe Fowler Design made this enormous sculpture for Nike in a mall in Johannesburg, South Africa. “Ball Man”, which is over 20 meters high, is modeled after player Carlos Tevez. It consists of 5,500 soccer balls suspended in the air, held together by cords.

Link via Make | Photo: Coolhunter

Dubbed the "oracle octopus", Paul beat his rival Mani, Singapore’s psychic parakeet, who incorrectly predicted a win for Holland.

Punters gambling on the mystic mollusc’s predictions have won up to half a million pounds during the month-long tournament, according to bookmakers William Hill. [...]

The octopus, who now resides in Germany’s Oberhausen Sea Life aquarium, correctly predicted the outcome of all six matches involving his adopted homeland by choosing to eat a mussel from boxes emblazoned with the flags of the German team and its rivals.

After his prediction that Germany would be defeated by Spain came to pass, some angry fans called for him to be thrown in a shark tank. But he won support from Spanish fans who pledged to protect him, despite their country’s fondness for calamari.

Link

There’s a new wave of instrumentation coming, with tiny RFID sensors embedded in balls, uniforms, and cleats, to track each athlete’s position on the field. Other leagues are experimenting. So should FIFA. “They have an under-17 series,” says Adams. “They should try things out there before introducing it at the World Cup level.”

Eventually, he says, the sensors will help referees identify off-sides violations, an incredibly hard call to make in real time with lightning fast athletes. A monitoring system could alert officials as soon as a ball is kicked that an offensive player is out of position. After a quick whistle, the game would resume, and any delay could be made up for in overage.

Link | Photo: US Department of Defense

These two fans spotted at the World Cup game between England and Algeria were compared to Laurel and Hardy. You don’t have to understand the language to enjoy the video clip, which includes more World Cup links at The Litter Box. Link

The short version of last week’s World Cup game between the US and England features only the best parts -both goals, with instant replays. In LEGO! This video was created by the folks at Lego Fussball, who have Lego versions of many games. English translation by The Guardian. -via Laughing Squid

The horns, FIFA officials said, were too much a part of the South African tradition to silence them. “It’s a local sound, and I don’t know how it is possible to stop it,” Joseph S. Blatter, FIFA’s president, told reporters. “I always said that when we go to South Africa, it is Africa. It’s not Western Europe. It’s noisy, it’s energy, rhythm, music, dance, drums. This is Africa. We have to adapt a little.”

Read about how the vuvuzela came to be such an integral part of the World Cup games at Smithsonian magazine. Link

(Image credit: Jon Hrusa /epa/Corbis)

South Korean fans are getting excited about their national team’s chances for winning the World Cup, so naturally they dressed penguins from a Seoul aquarium in team uniforms and put them on a model soccer field.

Link via Geekosystem

It’s been done before, but the effect is still funny! These shirts were designed for the Dutch Football Federation for the 2010 World Cup tournament beginning next week in South Africa. Do I see a woman wearing one of these in the background? Link -via Nag on the Lake

The RoboCup is an annual worldwide competition of soccer-playing robots. It’s a challenge that encourages roboticists to create intelligent, fast, and accurate machines. The above video is from a demonstration by Japan’s national team.

via CrunchGear | Official Website

This is a video for Football Made in Africa, a film about the roles of soccer/football in African societies. It shows a boy inflating a condom and wrapping it in yarn to create a functional soccer ball. Here’s a description of the project:

Every episode offers an original angle on a story, a slice of everyday life, where football is present everywhere. From the production of goals in the outskirts of Maputo to the atmosphere in bars where matches are aired on tiny TV screens, the harvesting of rubber tree waste to make balls or the beaches of Cameroon where fishermen use their nets to play.

via CrunchGear | Project Website

YouTube link

“Own goals” (kicking a ball into one’s own net) are uncommon in soccer (“football”) and ice hockey.  Because this one occurs in a youth sporting event, it is just indescribably cute.

Via BuzzFeed.

This video is a promotional gimmick for the British rock band Kasabian. It begins with craftsmen creating enormous functional buttons on the wall of a London warehouse. These and additional visual effects make a giant version of the video game Guitar Hero. Participants play by kicking soccer balls at the buttons in the right order to the tune of one of Kasabian’s songs.

via The Ampersand

See if you can beat my top score (4194, which is woefully low as compared to the top players of Monkey Kick Off): Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Christophe.

Here’s a bizarre and strange video where the presenters want you to see the latest and most fashionable Soccer uniforms and gear for the German clubs through dance! Mind you this is obviously weird because it’s from the 1970s and it’s from Germany. Those crazy crazy Germans.

via – BoingBoing